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Public may need better notification of rules changes, senator says Monday, Dec 4, 2006 By John Lyon Arkansas News Bureau LITTLE ROCK - Legislators may want to look at whether state agencies are doing enough to notify the public before making changes to regulations, a state senator says. Sen. Randy Laverty, D-Jasper, said he has received numerous complaints over the years from constituents who said they learned of important changes in regulations only after the opportunity for public comment had passed. The senator said he is not working on any new legislation regarding notification, but he would like to see the issue addressed. "The public I don't think is always adequately notified about changes in regulations that are coming by simply having the one source of information," said Laverty, who serves on the Administrative Rules and Regulations Committee of the state Legislative Council. Laverty recently was re-elected to a second term in the state Senate. He previously served three terms in the state House of Representatives. The Administrative Procedures Act states that prior to the adoption, amendment or repeal of any rule, an agency must give at least 30 days' notice of the intended action. The notice must include information about when, where and how the public can comment on the proposed change, and the notice must be published "in a newspaper of general daily circulation" for three consecutive days. The law states that agencies can also publish notice in professional publications "when appropriate," but it does not require them to do so. Agencies can fulfill the requirement by running a notice in Arkansas' only statewide newspaper. Laverty said that may not be enough. "A lot of our farmers and working-class people and business people, they don't necessarily read the statewide paper," he said. The senator said he realizes it would be cost-prohibitive to place a notice in every paper in the state, but he believes more could be done. He said he would like to see agencies make more of an effort to contact citizens' groups and organizations, and perhaps send notices to county courthouses. "Maybe they'll say it's too expensive, but I don't see that as being prohibitive, because we do that on so many other things," he said, noting that notification is sent to courthouses in advance of state holidays. Some agencies do go beyond the minimum requirements for notification, according to Donna Davis, an analyst with the state Bureau of Legislative Research. "I think some of them do advertise in other papers, and I think that a lot of times an agency will, if there's an industry newsletter or something like that, a lot of times the announcement can be put in that," she said. Cynthia Lauen, director of the state Towing and Recovery Board, said that in addition to placing a notice in the newspaper, the board posts information about public meetings, with agendas included, on its Web site. Lauen said the board does not contact towing companies or professional towing associations directly, but "most of them know we have a Web site." Audie Ayer, spokesman for the Arkansas Farm Bureau, said state agencies sometimes contact the Farm Bureau to ask for help in notifying the public of proposed changes. "We have publications that go statewide and have a pretty big circulation, and sometimes they'll ask us to write up an item or put a little notice of some sort in our publications, just to help get the word out," he said. Julie Munsell, spokeswoman for the state Department of Health and Human Services, said the agency follows the requirements of the Administrative Procedures Act, but "we don't do anything beyond that." Doug Szenher, spokesman for the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality, said the department has statutory guidelines that differ from the Administrative Procedures Act. The state Pollution Control and Ecology Commission, which sets the regulations the agency enforces, is required to place a notice in the newspaper for two consecutive days, 20 days in advance, but in some cases federal laws require more notice, he said. The commission also sends notices to 29 libraries across the state and to about 225 individuals and organizations on its mailing list, Szenher said. If anyone complains about not being notified, the commission will offer to add that person to the mailing list, he said. If an upcoming change affects only one part of the state, the agency will sometimes place an ad in a paper serving that region, in addition to the statewide paper, Szenher said. "We try very hard to give the public every opportunity to participate in this process," he said. |
